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I took her hand and kissed it. “Little Cat, we can take this slowly. It will all be okay.”
Baelen nodded and agreed with me, “I think you’ll find you are a lot more capable than you believe. No one can do everything perfectly. For anything I lack in skill, I make up for in tools.”
“Tools?”
He waved a hand around the room, and my eyes followed, taking in the art on the walls, a beautiful ornate mirror, books on shelves, and statues positioned on drawers. “Artifacts or items with magical purpose embedded in them,” he explained as he played with his ring again.
“That’s what your ring is?” I asked.
“How did you know?”
The relief at knowing it wasn’t a commitment ring, but a magical item, was absurd. Embarrassed by my own foolishness, a blush creeped up my neck to my cheeks. “Guessed.”
Baelen must have understood the emotions crossing my face, because he took a step toward me, our connection desperately trying to keep us all within arm’s reach of each other. Our eyes locked, and my skin tingled at the tension in the air.
Clawdia picked up a sheet of paper from the desk and a pen. "We should practice. Maybe starting with what we already know?" I raised a brow at her. “I want to make notes,” she told me, and I understood why Charlie was so enamored with her authoritative side.
These two are going to be havoc on my heart.I smiled.
"That’s a good idea.” Baelen rubbed his jaw. “Let me introduce you to the titan army I am building."
"An army?" I asked.
Why is he building an army? He can’t go to war against the realms that enslave us.
Baelen explained as he bent to rummage through drawers and chests, looking for something. "Armies have many roles and don't just fight wars. They protect their people and culture and home. They train in all necessary skills to survive. They prevent and deter invaders. An army is the best thing to restart the titan civilization."
I hadn't thought of the army like that before. After my days of being a fighter slave, I didn't like to think about violence, and armies equaled war in my eyes. But perhaps being in an army was the best place for homeless, cultureless, soulless titans.
Baelen turned with a knife in hand and stared at me seriously. "Let me warn you now. My army is in Akar, and the trainers are akari. Can you handle that?"
"What are we going to be doing there?" I asked instead of answering.
"Practicing healing on those who got hurt in their sparing today.”
“How does that work? How do we heal in a dream? Are we healing them, or have we created that scenario?" Clawdia asked. I had the same question in my mind since I had just healed Emily after her beating from Creath.
"Dream walking is complicated. It can be a manipulation of your own dream space, in which you pull others in, like this dream. Or you can walk through the dreams of others, as Zaide did in his brother’s. Many dreams are symbolic of the struggles we face in our waking lives. We can strip the dream of symbolism until we can reveal the truth of the problems, and you can learn to heal some of them. We'll be doing a combination of both to practice."
Having never heard him say so much at one time, I whispered to Clawdia, "You’re right. He is talkative when he gets going." She bit her lip to smother a laugh.
Baelen closed his mouth with a slight pout, which was very distracting, and stared at me with serious eyes. "You didn't answer my question. Can you handle being in Akar, healing my kind?"
"Yes." I nodded with bravado I didn’t feel. Akar was where I was kept a slave. My nightmares often began with the oppressive night’s sky and smell of blood.
Maybe with my soul pair and my soul mate at my side, I can distract myself from the memories of my past.
Baelen continued, oblivious to my inner turmoil. "We need to be on our guard. Since we will be dream walking and manipulating, there is a bigger chance we can slip in our protections and be attacked. Clawdia told you about the attack last time?" I nodded. "Good. It wasn't an accident. I think the people responsible are somewhere within my army. If people awaken having been healed, those who attacked me are going to know where we are and try to finish what they started."
He handed me the knife he had been playing with, and our fingers grazed, causing a momentary surge of desire. His next words only made me more attracted to him. "You are a fighter, a protector, and I ask that you put those skills to good use while we train."
I smiled grimly. "I will never allow my family to be taken from me again."
CHAPTER20
BAELEN
Idream walked us to akari, changing the landscape to be the familiar one of the castle grounds in which I housed my secret army. The stony castle where I lived sat picturesquely on a hill in the distance.
